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Peppermint Winter – Part 5

Even though Christmas is over, there’s still one more part in my Owl City fanfiction, Peppermint Winter, to enjoy. Last week, Arden gave Ben his present, and now it’s time to see what Ben received from his family!

I started my walk home, the scarf Arden had made me keeping my neck toasty warm. What a shame it was so strange looking. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it. I certainly couldn’t wear it in public. I stamped the snow off my boots and opened the door. “Hey.”

Opening the box, I found another wrapped package inside. I very carefully and gently ran my finger along the bottom of the package until I popped the tape loose. I slowly folded back the paper to reveal ten pairs of socks.

“Wasn’t that nice of Aunt Kate to get you socks. You know, Ben, you do need some new socks. Make sure you send her a thank you note.”

“You’re doing it all wrong, Ben!” Arden cried from her perch above me. “How can you stand to go so slow?” She slid down to the floor, leaned over, and ripped a section of paper free from the box. “You just have to rip it!”

At once I saw part of the word “Trek” on the box. I’d started collecting the DVDs of all the Star Trek series since I received my first set last year for Christmas. Usually I liked to carefully unwrap my gifts, but between seeing what it was and Arden’ urging me to rip it open, I quickly finished tearing off the wrapping. It was the entire series of Enterprise in a beautiful boxed set .“Thank you,” I told my parents gratefully.

“Here’s another one for you, Benjamin,” said my mom, handing me a soft-feeling present. I tore it open, now excited over what might be inside. “Socks?” I asked blankly, looking up at my mom as I held five pairs up.

“I saw you needed some more, Ben,” she explained. “so I thought I would wrap them up.”

“Thanks,” I said, sitting the socks to the side. I tried to feel grateful for the socks.

“Now you have to open my present, Benjamin,” my grandmother insisted from the couch. She handed me a box, one that could hold the complete set of Deep Space Nine. That would be a great gift. With that possibility in mind, I ripped off the wrapping and tore through the box. Inside were ten pairs of brand new socks. I just stared at them, trying to recover. Socks certainly weren’t as awesome as Deep Space Nine especially considering I had already gotten fifteen pairs of them.“Well, thank you,” I said to my grandmother, trying to be polite.

Arden startled everyone with an outburst. “Socks? I love socks! You can do so many things with socks. You are so lucky! You can wear them, of course, make sock puppets, use them as Christmas stockings, make a sock garden – which I did once, and it was really cool …” Arden chattered on about the usefulness of socks and the fate of her sock garden which she forgot to water.

“Here are some more socks for you, bro.” Trevor tossed his gift to me. “Mom told everyone you needed them. Guess you won’t anymore,” Trevor snorted with laughter. I unwrapped his gift and added five more pairs of socks to the pile.

“There’s another present for you, Benjamin! It’s from Grandma in Arizona.” Much like the package I opened before, it was a long box almost the exact same size as the previous one. Both grandmothers couldn’t have given me socks, could they? I couldn’t go slowly. I had to see if it was something different. I ripped off the wrapping and tore through the box to find ten more pairs of socks. Maybe I was still sleeping, and I was in some horrible nightmare. I pinched my arm hard to see if I was truly awake. Yes, it hurt and yes, I was awake.

“More socks!” cried Arden. “Can you imagine what we could make with all those socks? We could make a stuffed snowman, and I’ve always wanted to make those rice packs you heat up, ” continued an excited Arden. “You are so lucky!”

Forty pairs of socks. What in the world was I going to do with forty new pairs of socks? I was momentarily distracted as Arden’s phone dinged and vibrated.

She checked it and said, “Oops! I have to be getting home. My cousins are coming over. Thank you for letting me stay, Mrs. Sweet.”

I stood up, shaking off the bits of wrapping clinging to me and offered Arden her coat.

She yanked it on, and I walked her to the door. “Oh, Ben, I almost forgot.” She handed me something. “I told my grandmother in Iceland all about you, and she wanted to get you something for Christmas, too. Merry Christmas!” She skipped down the stairs and turned back towards me for a second, “Oh, and Ben?”

I nodded, “Yeah?”

“You should come over tomorrow. We can do something with all those socks!” She called as she ran across the snow back to her house.

“Sure,” I agreed with a sigh. At least I could get rid of some of those socks if I gave some to Arden to do whatever she wanted with them.

“Bye!” she called one last time before I heard the door to her house shut.

I looked down at the present in my hand. It was covered with red and white sparkly paper that looked like peppermint. I tore the paper, and crumbled it up and stuck it in my pocket. There, in my hand, lay five more pairs of socks, beautifully knitted by hand, I guessed. “Forty-five new pairs of socks. I ended up with forty-five new pairs of socks.” I muttered. I shook my head and sighed and walked back into my house.

Thanks for reading Peppermint Winter! Next week we’ll be taking a trip back in time to Victorian-era England so stick around! 🙂

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2 thoughts on “Peppermint Winter – Part 5”

Haha, imagine getting 45 pairs of socks. Wow. I actually quite enjoy getting socks for Christmas ’cause I genuinely need some by the end of the year, but I didn’t get any this time round! I have to say, I was a tad disappointed!

On the other hand, Victorian-era England is one of my favourite times 🙂 I look forward to it.